Three Spanish Plays and the Mid-Year Conference

The past few weeks have been marvelous. To begin, I had a period of about a week and a half in which I indulged in my theatrical side and saw a series of plays. The first play was originally Norwegian and titled Elling. It was recommended to me by the family to whom I teach a private English class since their son, who no longer lives at home, does the lighting and special effects for the theater that produced it. (Later in this blog I include another story about this family and a photo of some of them.) The play was great and told the story of two men who are finally deemed "normal" enough to live outside of the insane asylum where they have lived for years. It tells their mostly comical but sometimes sad and oftentimes poignant story of assimilating to society with their idiosyncrasies and differences. The second play, Noches blancas by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, took place in a small theater called the Teatro de Cámara Chéjov (which is how Spaniards transliterate the English transliteration "Chekhov"). I went with Ana from my school and two of her friends. The play was strange and told the story of an exuberant, somewhat childlike woman and a lonely, poetic man who almost fall in love through their nightly encounters in a park. After the play, Ana and I went out for a Moroccan dinner here in my neighborhood, Lavapiés. It was a great night.

The last play, however, was probably the most powerful. I invited quite a few people to come to see El proyecto Laramie (The Laramie Project) and also encouraged those people to invite their own friends. In the end, our group contained 17 people, and because we wanted so many tickets, the theater company gave us a group discount of 50% off of all the tickets, which was such a great deal for us. The show took place in a beautiful theater in Madrid that was once an old military barracks called the Conde Duque. It occupies an entire block and is a true behemoth, an austere building of stone and gargantuan proportions. The play evoked emotion in me, as it always does, and it fomented a great discussion afterwards about the death penalty, the community of Laramie, gay rights, and other things. It was so wonderful to be there with my usual group of friends (Ana, Ángel, Mike, Ali, and Kelly), among others (Kelly brought ten of her own friends, all of them Spaniards), and to get to have a great discussion about important issues because said issues were raised by a beautiful piece of art. It was a pleasure and a night I will never forget.

From left to right: Ruth, the mother; me; Adriana, the daughter;
Ruth's sister-in-law; Ruth's brother. Eugenio took the photo.

I have also continued to enjoy and deepen my friendships with some Spanish families. Ana and her family have invited me to go spend some time on the beach with them in Valencia during a big festival in that region called Las Fallas, so we will begin to plan that vacation. Ruth and Eugenio, the parents of the family that I teach every week, invited me over to their place to have lunch one Sunday. Eugenio taught me how to make gambas al ajillo con alioli (garlic shrimp with ali-oli sauce on bread) so that I can take some Spanish culinary techniques back to the United States. He had already prepared a delicious paella and salad when I arrived, so we all ate like kings with multiple courses, which is very common for Spaniards. Earlier this very week, I also had the chance to have dinner with Nani, Alfredo, and their son Alejandro. Alfredo is Adriana Noya's brother, and I taught Alex English one summer a few years ago. It was great to catch up with them and see how well they're all doing. Alex has grown a ton and Nani and Alfredo were just as nice and giving as they've always been. They fed me well and then sent me home with lots of delicious leftovers. It was extremely sweet of them.

From left to right: Nani, Alfredo, me, and Alex

Just this afternoon, I returned from the Fulbright Program's mid-year meeting. Because we are a little more than half-way through the duration of our grants, Fulbright brings us back together to enjoy each other's company, share what we've done so far, and inspire each other to finish the year out strong. Everyone on a Fulbright grant in all of Spain and Andorra came to Valladolid, the capital of Castilla y León, for a few wonderful days. We had lots of presentations and workshops about all sorts of things. Some sessions were smaller, collaborative groups in which we expressed the challenges and concerns about our work or in which we shared the type of community service in which we've engaged thus far. Other sessions included all of the conference members and contained really neat presentations. In one session, all of the Fulbright scholars who are American university professors teaching or researching in Spain presented, and it was thrilling. One professor at Berkeley is looking at how the European Union and Spain specifically are working on environmental policy iniciatives. Another scholar is researching how to put chemotherapeutical chemicals into miniscule air particles so that chemotherapy drugs can be inhaled and target cancerous cells more specifically, thereby reducing the side effects of intense chemotherapy. In another session, the student researchers presented on their work up until now--one girl doing social entrepreneuring in Barcelona, one guy doing chemical ecology in Cádiz, my friend doing gender performance and flamenco in Sevilla. These sessions were so inspirational and thrilling. I was also the moderator for a panel in which I was the representative from the Comunidad de Madrid for the teaching assistants' experience. I got to speak both about my personal and my professional life, and it was great to have to reflect on what I've done so for and, through extrapolation, consider where I'm going with the rest of this scholarship. All of the sessions were wonderful.

The courtyard of a building at the Universidad
de Valladolid where our meetings took place.

In terms of the "non-work" part of the conference, it was so great to reconnect with some old friends, make some new ones, and see a new city. Fulbright scheduled in some extracurricular activities, so I was able to visit a beautiful old library from the Universidad de Valladolid with lots of old manuscripts from the Middle Ages, some of the first prints of rare books in the Renaissance, and other cool texts. I also got to go with our group to tour the Bodega Protos Ribera del Duero, a vineyard and winery right underneath a beautiful castle about an hour away from Valladolid. Throughout the conference we were served delicious meals in an extremely fancy ballroom in the hotel, our hotel was very elegant, centrally-located, and great, and the whole experience was fantastic. Ali was my roommate, and she and I had our usual wonderful talks. I also had the opportunity (because I snuck out early on one of the sessions!) to visit the house where Cervantes lived while he was a resident of Valladolid in the first decade of the 1600s. Though I felt bad for leaving one session early, I really wanted to take advantage of being in the city, and I told myself that, since one day I want to teach literature, it was really a long-term investment in myself as a scholar and pedagogue. :) Regardless, the mid-year meeting was a complete success. I had tons of fun, I feel really inspired by all of the bright, motivated, good-hearted people that I met, and I just felt so privileged to be on a Fulbright scholarship this year since Fulbright really spoils us. For example, in addition to paying for our meals, our transporation fees to and from Valladolid, our hotel expenses, the winery tour, and all of that, we were each given 50 euros of spending money for our time up there. It felt like being a kid again and getting allowance! Fulbright takes wonderful care of its scholars, and its such a privilege to be a part of this program this year. It also just introduces you to some of the most stimulating individuals. I met a sweet woman who is finishing her dissertation on Miguel de Unamuno and who just got a job offer for a tenure-track position at Yale. I met and then spoke quite a bit with the professor who presented about chemotherapy particles, a man who got his PhD in nanophysics at Harvard and who is in Spain with his husband of 14 years, a jolly, light-hearted man who also became my friend. It was just so inspirational to be around such bright, brave people for a few precious days.

The castle above the vineyard and winery--isn't Europe
the best?

Though things are "back to normal" here, I feel renewed and inspired because of the conference. I just took a long jog in Parque El Retiro in Madrid since I might compete in a triathlon in late May with a new friend I made at the conference named Colin, and I'm ready to continue to suck the marrow out of these Spanish bones for 4-5 more months before I come back to the United States of America!

Below are two photos from when Miguel and I were in the apartment of a super rich gay couple on the top residential floor of the Torre de Madrid with a rainbow behind us on one side and a sunset on the other. I meant to put these up a long time ago, but here they finally are.

You can just barely see one end of the enormous rainbow
on the left-hand side of the photo.

Life doesn't get better than a sunset on a skyscraper
in a European capital.

Birthday Celebrations and Personal Clarity

I am aware that I left my last post at something of a dreadfully exciting cliffhanger in which you were all dying to know what I ended up doing to celebrate my birthday. You may all breathe easily now, for I will give you the next installment of the thrilling life of Bob Weatherford and recount for you all the details of a wonderful celebration of the day I came to this earth. (If my sarcasm didn't come through in this introductory snippet, I will state it explicitly here: this was supposed to be sarcastic. But I did have a wonderful birthday.)

Me, bright and shiny thanks to a nice flash, with my
five-cookie birthday cake and a monkey candle, all thanks to
Ana.

My birthday this year landed on a Thursday, and it was not just any normal Thursday but a Thursday in which all of the teaching assistants in the Community of Madrid had to attend one of our training and informational meetings. These things aren't the most thrilling gatherings of one's life, but they are a mandatory and important part of our assignment here in Madrid, so I always happily go. Plus, they are a great chance to get in touch with old friends from orientation with whom I haven't stayed in touch. Anyway, knowing that I had a full day of classes at school and then this meeting, I was just planning on doing something really small for my birthday. I just wanted to get a drink and some light food with some of my friends after our night meeting. So I ended up going out with Kelly (my roommate), Ali (you all know her sparkling face by now because of my frequent mentions of her on this blog), Ricardo (a brilliant and wonderful art teacher at Kelly's school), and Ana (a counselor at my school with whom I traveled to Granada). We decided to go to a nice rooftop/terrace cafe in Chueca, Madrid's gay neighborhood and one of the trendiest places in town. There, a few of my friends (Ana and Ricardo) surprised me with gifts. Ana bought me a book of writings by a Peruvian author named Eduardo Galeano, and Ricardo bought me a feminist book called El asalto al Hades. Ana also brought five small cookies and a monkey-shaped candle, and my friends sang to me and then we cut the figurative "cake" by distributing one cookie to each person. It was a night full of joy and celebration, and my friends made it absolutely incredible. Ricardo, Kelly, and Ana had to work the next day, so we called it quits early on Thursday night, knowing that we would reunite on Friday for more festivities.

I spent Friday morning doing things that I love to do--running in El Retiro park, reading books, and relaxing. On Friday night, I had told my friends that I would love to cook something for them and then go out dancing since it had been awhile since I had done that. My friends were acting a little funny (each of them in their own way, some by making excuses, others by simply being furtive), and eventually the secret spilled that they had planned a surprise party for me at a Mexican restaurant! So dinner was at a delicious Mexican restaurant here in Madrid. The guests included the same people from Thursday night plus two additions, Ángel, Ana's husband, and Mike, another good friend from the Fulbright Program. Dinner was wonderful. The food was delicious (and Mom, Ana ordered molé, just like you always do), our table was in its own room so we had plenty of privacy, and the evening ended with a host of surprises. The first was a homemade carrot cake that Kelly, Ricardo, and Ali had made for me. It was moist, sweet, and exactly what I needed, even though it caused a couple of the waiters to glare at our table or at least look at it with suspicion. Next came a round of poetry reading. Ali had proposed that, because of my love of literature, everyone prepare a poem to read. I had amazing words read to me--a poem about gypsies by Federico García Lorca, for example, or a beautiful one about gratitude called "Gracias a la vida" that Ali prepared. When it was finally Kelly's turn, she started reading slowly and dramatically the following words:

Music stops (Kelly pauses dramatically)

Listen, hot stuff (another pregnant pause)

I'm in LOVE with this song

So just hush, baby, shut up

Heard enough

Stop ta-ta-talking that BLAH BLAH BLAH!

Yes, Kelly had chosen the profound poem written by modern culture's poet laureate Ke$ha, such a renowned bard that she requires only a single name to identify her striking work. I was almost peeing my pants laughing. No one else at the table got in on the joke, and since the language of the evening was Spanish except for this brief English interjection, the poor Spaniards had no idea why I was heaving and sobbing with laughter. That is Kelly--witty to the bone, hilarious, and perfectly well-timed. I loved the contrast of sobriety and levity, of sheer frivolity and also poetic profundity of the whole experience. It was a marvelous dinner.

I was also given gifts at this dinner. My friends pooled in to buy me the board game Manzanas con Manzanas (Apples to Apples), which I have been wanting for a long time. Ali bought me a framed replica of Picasso's "Guernica" since I find it such a moving piece of artwork. And Mike bought me a book about the value of reading and literature. (Wow, I make my interests and passions pretty well known, eh? :) ) It was such a beautiful moment of celebration and gratitude, and when the great dinner was over, we all went out to dance! We just found a dance club in the center of the city that I entered first to make sure the music seemed like our style, and we danced our hearts out. "I Like How It Feels" by Enrique Iglesias came on, as did numerous other pop songs that got my little butt shaking on the dance floor. It was so fun to be surrounded by friends in such a fun, carefree environment. It was, all in all, a fabulous and unforgettable birthday.

The beautiful souls who made my birthday magical,
from left to right: Ricardo, Mike, Ángel, Ana, Ali, Kelly.

Life has gone back to normal since then, although I made a couple of really important decisions regarding my romantic life a little more than a week ago, and that has brought about a sense of pride, self-empowerment, and happiness, which have all been welcome gifts. I am moving forward with my life, and it's a great feeling.

El Palacio Real de Aranjuez

Briefly, this past weekend, though I wanted to do a little traveling, Madrid got hit with a cold front from Siberia that caused winds that could almost rival some of Laramie's (which, as we all know, is really saying something). Instead of traveling far, therefore, I decided to tour a ritzy mansion of a former marquis here in Madrid called the Museo de Cerralbo. It was a stunning mansion filled with ornately decorated rooms, each with its own distinct style. I then also went to Aranjuez, a small town in the very southern part of the Community of Madrid where there lies yet another royal palace. Though it was quite windy and cold down there, it was wonderful to get to tour the palace and walk around some of the other royal grounds. The consistent impression that I had during my trip was that the Spanish monarchy was so vastly wealthy. I pondered Felipe II, the king who had this castle and El Escorial built, and the man who was also the king of all of Spain's American possessions (i.e. all of Central and South America and a good chunk of North America, too), many territories in Europe (since he was a Habsburg), territories all along the coast of Africa, and territories in the Indonesian islands, as well. I can hardly imagine all of that pomp and power. It's unbelievable to consider and fascinating at the same time. Relics from these ages, like the various castles in the Community of Madrid, survive like giant reminders of the lavish riches of the aristocracy.

All is very well here. I will be travelling to Valladolid in a couple of weeks for a work conference, so I will post again soon about that city as another part of my exploration of beautiful Spain!